Music — Blog — Of Liberal Intent

THE ROCK-Y HORROR SHOW

If you live in my town, which I realize you may not, the next time you go grocery shopping, you should look across the street at the Presbyterian Church and check out what’s up next with their Sermons on Song series. Apparently the minister has decided the church needs to attract some young blood and is holding forth on rock songs. So far he’s done “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Show Me the Way”, which means that he’s probably doing a good job of bringing in the younger set—the younger set that is trying to figure out how their Medicare works, that is. If he’s going decade by decade, as it appears, I’m here to suggest as his topic song for the eighties “Da da da”, and for the nineties, let’s go with “Sex and Candy”, huh?

Music, Society, MoralityBigly CovfefeJune 5, 2018music, public morals, society

THE DRUG SONG DETECTIVE IS ON THE JOB

Some of my favorite moments have come when I have been sitting at my desk, quietly doing my regular job, when somebody bursts through my office door in a panic, requiring my help in determining whether a given song contains any narcotics allusions. Many years ago, one of my most desperate clients was a co-worker who had just been told by a friend that Simon and Garfunkel were lovers and that “Puff, the Magic Dragon” was a drug song. Although I was able to reassure him that I had never heard anything about Paul and Art being lovers, and that it seemed unlikely to me—not to mention that if they had been, they were currently engaged in the world’s longest-running lovers’ spat, I had to tell him that yes, “Puff” (to give it its actual title), was indeed a drug song. And what thanks did I get for this valuable service? He poutily informed me that when he listened to it, he wasn’t thinking about narcotics, so it was in fact not actually a drug song, therefore elevating the philosophy of solipsism to heights hitherto undreamt of. So taken aback was I that I never felt able to charge him my usual fee.